Skip to main content
Duke University Libraries
DukeSpace Scholarship by Duke Authors
  • Login
  • Ask
  • Menu
  • Login
  • Ask a Librarian
  • Search & Find
  • Using the Library
  • Research Support
  • Course Support
  • Libraries
  • About
View Item 
  •   DukeSpace
  • Theses and Dissertations
  • Duke Dissertations
  • View Item
  •   DukeSpace
  • Theses and Dissertations
  • Duke Dissertations
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Building the Good Life: Architecture and Politics

Thumbnail
View / Download
2.6 Mb
Date
2010
Author
Aslam, Ali
Advisor
Euben, J. Peter
Repository Usage Stats
2,321
views
2,888
downloads
Abstract

This dissertation examines the relationship between architecture and democratic politics in late-modernity. It identifies the refusal of architects to consider the political dimensions of their work following the failures of 20th century High Modernism and the scant attention that the intersection between architecture and politics has received from political theorists as a problem. In order to address these deficiencies, the dissertation argues for the continued impact of architecture and urban planning on modern subject formation, ethics, and politics under the conditions of de-centralized sovereignty that characterize late-modernity. Following an opening chapter which establishes the mutual relation architectural design and political culture in the founding text of political science, Aristotle's Politics, the dissertation offers a genealogical critique of modern architectural design and urban planning practices. It concludes that modern architecture shapes individual and collective political possibilities and a recursive relationship exists between the spaces "we" inhabit and the people that "we" are. In particular, it finds that there is a strong link between practices of external circulation and the interior circulation of thoughts about the self and others. The dissertation concludes by proposing a new understanding of architecture that dynamically relates the design of material structures and the forms of political practices that those designs facilitate. This new definition of architecture combines political theorist Hannah Arendt's concept of "world-building action" with the concept of the "threshold" developed and refined by Dutch architects Aldo van Eyck and Herman Hertzberger.

Type
Dissertation
Department
Political Science
Subject
Political Science, General
Architecture
architecture
democracy
Hannah Arendt
Michel Foucault
politics
urban planning
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/2993
Citation
Aslam, Ali (2010). Building the Good Life: Architecture and Politics. Dissertation, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/2993.
Collections
  • Duke Dissertations
More Info
Show full item record
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Rights for Collection: Duke Dissertations


Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info

Make Your Work Available Here

How to Deposit

Browse

All of DukeSpaceCommunities & CollectionsAuthorsTitlesTypesBy Issue DateDepartmentsAffiliations of Duke Author(s)SubjectsBy Submit DateThis CollectionAuthorsTitlesTypesBy Issue DateDepartmentsAffiliations of Duke Author(s)SubjectsBy Submit Date

My Account

LoginRegister

Statistics

View Usage Statistics
Duke University Libraries

Contact Us

411 Chapel Drive
Durham, NC 27708
(919) 660-5870
Perkins Library Service Desk

Digital Repositories at Duke

  • Report a problem with the repositories
  • About digital repositories at Duke
  • Accessibility Policy
  • Deaccession and DMCA Takedown Policy

TwitterFacebookYouTubeFlickrInstagramBlogs

Sign Up for Our Newsletter
  • Re-use & Attribution / Privacy
  • Harmful Language Statement
  • Support the Libraries
Duke University